


there is no such thing as happily ever after

by nikmood



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-09
Updated: 2012-03-09
Packaged: 2017-11-01 16:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikmood/pseuds/nikmood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there is no such thing as happily ever after

It’s an unspoken rule amongst everyone at the hospital. There are two names that are never spoken around Dr. Scully; Emily and William. If anyone, especially a child, with either of those names comes in, another doctor takes over almost quickly enough that Dana doesn’t know what her colleagues are doing for her. And she appreciates it more than they will ever realize, because no one asks nosy questions as to why the first time a beautiful blue eyed baby boy named William was brought in with a fever and chest congestion Dana Scully turned white and slowly walked out of the exam room, excusing herself as she ran off to throw up the blueberry bagel she had for breakfast.

It’s easy at the hospital. Scully is able to quell the pain of her empty arms and the fact that there aren’t two children at home to call her Mom by being around other people’s children. She tells herself she is making a difference by talking in a soothing manner (a vocal technique she learned many years ago while dealing with the myriad of scrapes Mulder would get himself into) to scared children who have been rushed in by frantic parents because of a broken bone or projectile vomiting or a cough that just won’t go away.

Scully can pretend at work. It’s when she gets home that’s a completely different ballgame.

Mulder had taken to his new calling as a reclusive writer of how to guides for the paranoid paranormal hunter like a duck to water. He grew the beard back out, much to her dismay. He claims that not only does it add to his mysterious air, it keeps his face warm, and it’s really all her fault because she just had to move to the mountains where it snowed almost year-round. The sharp peaks and deep valleys remind her of her life, and they are so far removed from D.C., where everything was flat and stifling. She thinks that it is truly fitting that the nation’s capital was built on top of a swamp considering the majority of people there truly belong in a swampy cesspool.

Mulder doesn’t notice that when she is sitting watching television or reading, or when she is lying in bed in the middle of night wide awake instead of sleeping, how one arm curls around herself protectively, with the other hand spread out low on her abdomen. Rarely does she cry anymore. It’s not that she doesn’t think of the little girl that she only knew for a few days but stole her heart, or the baby boy that was never supposed to be born that she carried inside of her body for nine months and had to end up giving away to a new family so he had a chance at being safe. Her thoughts are consumed by them, wondering what they would be like now. Dana knows this isn’t healthy, but she functions the only way she knows how. 

She survives by putting one foot in front of the other and is so damn tired of having to live a monotonous life that there are days that she has to physically sit on her hands to keep from clawing Mulder’s face so he might actually feel and act like she is there and he gives a damn. At this point there relationship is a stagnant farce. They might sleep in the same bed most nights of the week, and they might even have sex once in a while. Buy she can’t remembered the last time they playfully bickered with each other, or he put his hand on the small of her back as they were grocery shopping, or when she would bring him a root beer while he was furiously writing away and he would give her a look and smile slowly. Perhaps that is the danger in loving someone as much as they loved each other. They gave up everything, and now they are left with nothing.

Dana is at work one morning when she gets a nosebleed. She figures it might be from her blood pressure spiking earlier when they almost lost a family that had been in a wreck with a semi. A quick trip to the bathroom where she washes her face and she’s right back out in the pit. A few days later she feels her nose start to bleed while she’s eating lunch. When she feels the long-forgotten sensation of blood dribbling down the back of her throat as it trickles out of both nostrils for the third day that week, she goes back to the bathroom to rinse out her mouth and wash her face methodically. Dr. Dana Katherine Scully might not possess an eidetic memory, but she’s still smart and can remember what she was told years ago lying in a hospital bed with her brother scowling in the corner standing next to their mother.

She doesn’t know what exactly she believes in anymore, but she knows that she is no longer Scully or Mommy. Dana looks in the bathroom mirror and smiles. Maybe she won't have to be tired much longer.


End file.
